Games Beaten 2012

[J T]

Deus Ex: Human Revolution (1/12) PC
Mirror's Edge (1/18) PC
Medal of Honor [2010] (1/23) PC
Puzzle Agent 2 (2/2) PC
Dinner Date (2/15) PC
NyxQuest (2/19) PC
Dear Esther (2/20) PC
The Stanley Parable (2/21) PC
To The Moon (2/26) PC
Escape Goat (6/16) PC
Rayman Origins (6/17) PC
Robot Pinball Escape (6/18) PC
Offspring Fling (7/16) PC
The Darkness II (7/30) PC
Thomas Was Alone (8/22) PC
Thirteen Flights of Loving (8/23) PC
Corril Slayer (8/27) PC
Sleeping Dogs (10/02) PC

Sleeping Dogs adds some nice polish to the GTA/open-world formula. It's the basic type of game where you are plopped into a big environment and there are various missions and side missions for you to do, but what puts Sleeping Dogs a cut above is the fine tuned gameplay. As much as I've loved the GTA series, the shooting and fighting usually sucked. Sleeping Dogs has some brilliant martial arts gameplay that allows for targeting, combos, throws, environmental damage, nonobtrusive cinematic camera work, and it's just plain fun. The the kung fu is the center of attention here, the shooting segments are fun too and allow you to take cover and plan you shots.

The driving segments were pretty good. Considering I played with keyboard and mouse, they were really good. As a general rule, driving sucks without an analogue stick or a wheel, but I found the races to be one of my favorite activities in this game even though I played them entirely with WASD. There's a drift mechanic that works pretty well and a ramming action for dealing with people trying to pass you. Each car handles unquely. This is a game that lets you go fast all the time too, despite being in the crowded streets of Hong Kong. It's really smartly designed so that you have lots of road room to navigate between cars and the population of pedestrians seems to be smaller when you are at higher speeds. This lack of realism is welcome as Sleeping Dogs never feels slow paced, unlike a game like Mafia where you could literally get stuck in a traffic jam and have to wait for a bridge to raise and lower while you were in the middle of a mission. There are parkour foot chases throughout the game too that kept the pace on high speed. I really appreciate how smartly designed the game world is to always sacrfice realism (in terms of traffic and population) in favor of player freedom to move quickly without obstruction.

This game ranks up there with GTA, its obvious influence. It's definitely better than the True Crime series that it spawned from and I think it may even give GTA 5 a run for its money. Wei Shen kicks ass and Hong Kong is a hell of a place for a crime game. Of course, the graphics are amazing. The sound track is unbelievably good with radio stations from Warp Records (my favorite label), Kerrang, Real FM, and others. And the story is just as good as it needs to be for this type of game (something worth working your way through, but nothing too overbearing to interfere too much with the fun of the open world). Really a top notch open world game.

[Balasubbie]

Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit - PS3 version - New!

Cool write-up, thanks. I'm going to give this one a pop whenever I finally get a few of those long-threatened PSN cards I've been putting-off.

[Gamerforlife]

Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit - PS3 version - New!

Cool write-up, thanks. I'm going to give this one a pop whenever I finally get a few of those long-threatened PSN cards I've been putting-off.

You're welcome! I hope you have as much fun playing it as I did.

[noiseredux]

1. Sonic CD (PSN)
2. Golden Axe Warrior (PS3)
3. Ico (PS3)
4. BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger (PS3)
5. 3D Dot Game Heroes (PS3)
6. SoulBlade (PS1)
7. SoulCalibur II (PS2)
8. The Simpsons Arcade Game (PS3)
9. Sonic Sega All-Stars Racing (PS3)
10. Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock (PS3)
11. Ys I (PSP)
12. Heavy Rain (PS3)
13. Street Fighter x Tekken (PS3)
14. King of Fighters XIII (PS3)
15. Knights of the Round (PS2)
16. Journey (PSN)
17. Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition (PS3)
18. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (PS1)
19. Skullgirls (PSN)
20. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 (PS2)
21. Abobo's Big Adventure (PC)
22. Adventure (PC)
23. Wolfenstein 3D (PSN)
24. Pac-Man Championship Edition (360)
25. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (360)
26. Garou: Mark of the Wolves (XBLA)
27. X-Men (XBLA)
28. Cthulhu Saves the World (XBLA)
29. DoDonPachi Resurrection - Novice Mode (360)
30. Mushihimisama Futari - Novice Mode (360)
31. Deathsmiles IIX (360)
32. The King of Fighters Evolution (DC)
33. Deathsmiles (360)
34. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (DC)
35. Maniac Mansion Deluxe (PC)

wow, it's been over a month since I beat something? Well, MM Deluxe was great. As a fan of Maniac Mansion on NES, it was a trip to play it with upgraded audio and visuals. I really missed that NES music though. But it was really a lot of fun, and a reminder to me of why I love this game so much.

[Gamerforlife]

Games beaten so far:
1. Mario vs Donkey Kong: Minis March Again - DSiWare (Gold Star save file)
2. Sonic Generations - PS3
3. Super Mario 3D Land - 3DS (with a five glittering star save file)
4. Starship Defense (All no SOS perfects) - DSiWare
5. Soul of Darkness - DSiWare
6. Mutant Mudds (All crystals and water sprouts) - 3DS Eshop
7. The Simpsons Arcade (US Version) - PS3
8. DodoGo! - DSiWare - (Golden egg on every stage)
9. Mass Effect 2 - 360 (Insanity mode difficulty with Sentinel class)
10. Mass Effect 3 - 360 (Insanity mode with Adept)
11. Final Fantasy XIII-2 - PS3 (Platinum trophy)
12. Xenoblade Chronicles - Wii
13. The Darkness II - Xbox 360
14. Lollipop Chainsaw - PS3 (Platinum trophy) and 360 version (all achievements)
15. Dust: An Elysian Tale - Xbox Live Arcade
16. Cthulu Saves the World - Xbox 360 (Xbox Live Indie Games)
17. Double Dragon Neon - Xbox 360
18. Mark of the Ninja - Xbox 360
19. Journey - PS3
20. Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit - PS3

Fez - Xbox 360

Wow. What a weird and bizzare game. It looks and sounds like an 8-bit game, which is pretty cool. There's even a cool shout out to the original Super Mario Bros. The game's a puzzle platformer. You solve puzzles by shifting the camera perspective, which alters the environment. It seems familiar, like I've played other games with this mechanic. Can't think of what they are though. Only game to come to mind is Crush on the PSP, which has a mechanic that is similar, but not quite the same. It was another puzzle game built around altering your environment and shifting perspectives. I think I enjoyed Crush more than this game though.

The game has a vague, nebulous story that is never fully explained. The ending is trippy, disturbing and really, really surreal. Like some kind of crazy dream sequence. I feel like I've only scratched the surface of this game despite having beat it. There's a ton of items I've haven't collected and puzzles I haven't yet solved. Plus, the game has a lot of weird symbols and imagery everywhere, and you feel kind of like deciphering and understand this stuff is the only way to know how to solve some of the game's puzzles and also make sense of the story. Such an odd game, like a Lost episode in video game form. I don't really know how I feel about the game. Not sure if I really liked it or not. I'm still sort of letting it all sink in and process. Definitely an interesting game

[ExedExes]

Shenmue II -- Dreamcast (January 9)
Golden Axe Warrior -- Sega Master System (January 19)
Ys I -- Turbo CD (March 22)
Zanac X Zanac -- PS1 (April 7)
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 -- Dreamcast (April 30)
Warioware Twisted - Game Boy Advance (May 30)
Wolfenstein 3D - Game Boy Advance (May 31)
Warioware Inc. - Game Boy Advance (June 15)
The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past - Game Boy Advance (June 25)
Super Mario Advance 2: SMW - Game Boy Advance (June 26)
Command & Conquer - PC (June 28)
Gunstar Heroes - Genesis (July 6)
Call of Duty Finest Hour - GameCube (August 13)
Bomberman '94 - PC Engine (August 17)
Salamander 2 - MAME/Arcade (August 19)
Megaman 7 - SNES (by way of Mega Man Anniversary Collection) (August 17)
Medal of Honor Frontline - GameCube (August 24)
Super Star Shooter - Sharp X68000 (August 30)
Mega Man 8 - PS1 (by way of Mega Man Anniversary Collection (August 31)
Mega Man Anniversary Collection - GameCube (August 31)
Medal of Honor Allied Assault - PC (September 5)
Super Mario Advance - Game Boy Advance (September 7)
Call of Duty - PC (September 14)
*NEW* Maniac Mansion (Deluxe Version) - PC (October 4)

One of the TR games, it's been collecting dust on the hard drive for a while, but it was a nice 2-hour trip back through it again.

[AppleQueso]

You solve puzzles by shifting the camera perspective, which alters the environment. It seems familiar, like I've played other games with this mechanic. Can't think of what they are though.

Echochrome?

[RyaNtheSlayA]

You're welcome! I hope you have as much fun playing it as I did.

I certainly am. I put in 4 hours last night. Platformers are one of my favorite genres, and this one very much tickles my fancy. Completely ridiculous and fun. Reminds me a bit of a much more playable Jazz Jackrabbit with much more style and variety. I wouldn't be surprised if I finished it tonight.

[RyaNtheSlayA]

Dear Esther
Deus Ex Human Revolution + Missing link
Jamestown
Shank
Sonic Generations
Thunderforce III
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
Doom (GBA version)
Batman Arkham Asylum
Wolfenstein 3D
Gran Turismo 5
Batman Arkham City
Project Gotham Racing 3
Borderlands
Jet Set Radio HD

Hell Yeah!

Welp, finished this one off this afternoon. Really had a lot of fun with it and it didn't outstay it's welcome. Took me about 5 and a half hours to complete, probably 30 minutes of that was me dying.

That said, the ending was a bit of a disappointment, and there's really no end-game to speak of. However there's quite a few very amusing pictures during the credits. I definitely felt my 15 bucks was put to good use. Glad Sega went ahead and published this one.

[dsheinem]

wow, it's been over a month since I beat something?

I just realized that I haven't beaten a major, non-arcade style retail release on the 360, PS3, or Wii since May. In fact, I've only beaten four such titles this year (Halo Anniversary, Mass Effect 4, Driver SF, and Shadows of the Damned). That's very weird for me.